Course by Degrees
by KKGlinka
Summary: An alternate take on the confrontation between Zatanna and Catwoman.


Title: Course by Degrees  
Continuity: Catwoman v.2 #50   
Warnings: Bad language.  
Disclaimer: All characters © DC Comics.

* * *

Catwoman gazed up at Zatanna hovering a few feet off above the brownstone roof. "From what I've seen, you're never good news. Why are you here?" 

"Because you and...," Zatanna waved perfunctorily towards Bristol, Gotham City. "What I saw in the Cave, I mean..." She chewed on her lip. "We all know the stories about you two but I didn't realize they were true. You're, you, um..."

"We're exes."

"Yes. I," she drifted off again. "Like I said, I thought it was a rumor, before."

"Before what?"

"I made you forget."

"Forget?" Selina tasted bile. "Like Dr. Light?"

"You know about that?"

"We all know."

Zatanna swallowed, biting her lip. "This was different, a long time ago, a while after you first started up, got big. You joined the Secret Society with Light and the others."

"No I didn't," Selina whispered.

"You did. _Rebmemer_."

Selina dropped the styrofoam coffee cup, staggering back until her legs collided with the sidewall. She sat down, abruptly. Dropping her head, covering it with her arms, she keened and Zatanna pulled back into the air.

The kick and whip-lash both missed her as Catwoman stumbled back down to the roof. As if deflated, her arms went slack and she hunched. "We were friends. _Friends!_ I helped him and you made me forget?"

"What was I supposed to think? You two were enemies for so long, then all of the sudden best buddies, you knew who he was and then you joined an organized group of villains. What were we supposed to do?"

"Trust me?"

"You were one of them," Zatanna whispered in answer.

"No. _No._ It was like this." Catwoman pointed out towards the streets. "They expected it. I was the best for the job. I had to do it. They didn't give me a choice." Her face twisted. "You didn't even give me a chance! You stupid cunt! You have no idea what you did!"

Zatanna felt a tic at her eye. "I know what I did," she growled. "I protected my friends from a known threat."

"No. You wouldn't say that if you knew. I forgot... forgot..." Catwoman's hand gestures took on a frenetic quality. "I didn't remember my sister for ten years and it took a nervous breakdown to do it. _My own sister._ Was that part of your plan, Ms. Superhero?"

"It only should have..." She shook her head, haltingly. "That's not how it works. I only made you forget what you were thinking about right then. The Society, who he was." She hadn't the power then to affect that level of repression. Something wasn't right.

Catwoman nodded her head, woodenly. "Yeah? I was thinking about my family, people I cared about, how I needed to change what I was doing." Her hands were shaking badly. "I guess your plan worked."

"But you were..."

"A villain?" She shook her head, wanly. She stepped on the styrofoam cup where it lay, discarded. "A criminal," she corrected. "Did he not- Does he know?"

Out of courtesy, she ignored the slip. Catwoman wasn't supposed to care if Batman noticed her. "He hasn't said. I don't know."

"That you were protecting him. So all he knows is I left? "

Zatanna looked down at her hands, clenched in fists. She did her best to speak in a calm, measured tone. "It doesn't need to be a disaster. It's why I'm telling you, so you can do something about it."

"Stop making assumptions. For all you know, he proposed to me before I walked out on him."

"Give him some credit. I'm sure he can handle-"

"What? A woman saying she's got his back and then leaving him? You should have gone straight for the prize and shot me, really rammed that point home."

Zatanna held her breath, wondering if that last volley had been the truth, rather than an exaggeration designed to make her feel guilty. The stories about the Bat and the Cat went back to the beginning but _it couldn't have been_. "I was inexperienced."

"You got no fucking aim with that thing! Not then. Not now. I could have been on your side all along! But you went and made me forget my family, my home, _why I cared_. I lost years. I..." Catwoman drifted to a halt, as if an invisible cord had been cut. "Except, it wasn't you."

"What are you talking about? I know what I did."

"Yeah. Congratulations on that, but Light got to me first."

_Shit._ Zatanna swallowed past the block of ice that seemed to form in her chest. She had come prepared for anger, justified accusations, but not this... this fluke. She tried to calculate the odds and the hair on her neck raised. It was if the numbers themselves were magnified back at her, tenfold.

"Funny, isn't it? How you both had the same solution to the same _complicated_," she sneered the word, "problem. I just wouldn't fit in that little box, would I?"

Zatanna held back a frown. She wondered if Batman ever felt judged like this by a known felon. She tried to remember the last time a villain had sounded disappointed rather than frustrated.

"At least he had a reason." Catwoman canted her head to one side, her tone almost bemused. "I wouldn't tell him about Batman. Isn't that funny?"

There was that feeling again, like someone walking over her grave. "What did he do to you?"

"He's a serial murderer and rapist. He did the same thing you did."

"That's not a fair comparison." She choked back any further denials. This wasn't the time or place. Selina was, no doubt, still processing memories.

"Oh? Sure feels the same."

For the second time, Zatanna reassessed, this time, Batman's infamous come-back to all things Catwoman. 'She's complicated' echoed in her mind, his voice as he ended any discussion that strayed too far into that territory. The cat mask was suddenly less amusing, less of a joke.

The wind whistled across concrete, through iron, steel and broken glass. The sun was breaking over the reticulated city horizon.

Selina balanced on the ledge, holding fingertips delicately to her temple. "At least now I know why he was always expecting me to waffle."

"If I'd known-"

"It wouldn't have mattered. I was one of the bad guys." Catwoman gave her a thin, harsh smile. "You would have gone along with it."

"We would have helped." If she had known, anyone had, Batman would have told them. She had to believe that.

"Forgive me if I don't buy that."

Now was not the time. There was too much. Zatanna crossed her arms. "Fine. What are you going to do?"

"I'm picking the one I want."

"Want?"

"Car."

Zatanna shook her head, baffled. "You can't just steal a car. That's..."

"Why not? Is someone's trust in me at stake? It's not like I do anything good without a hidden motivation. Everyone knows that."

Catwoman did a swan dive off the parapet and a few moments later, Zatanna heard the abbreviated squawk of a car alarm.


End file.
